Kevon Felmine

A night of fun for three friends end­ed in tragedy when an ear­ly morn­ing road ac­ci­dent in La Ro­maine claimed the lives of two, while one has been left fight­ing for her life. Jelis­sa Vic­to­ry, 19, of War­den Road, South Oropouche died on the spot while Kei­fon Cuffie, of Me­dine Street, Gas­par­il­lo, was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. The third vic­tim Melis­sa El­bourne, of St John's in South Oropouche was up to yes­ter­day ward­ed in a se­ri­ous con­di­tion at hos­pi­tal. Po­lice said that around 2:30 am, Cuffie, Vic­to­ry and El­bourne were trav­el­ling along the South Trunk Road at Mos­qui­to Creek, La Ro­maine in a Maz­da 323 ve­hi­cle. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said Cuffie who was dri­ving, ven­tured too far to the right when turn­ing on­to the Godineau Bridge and col­lid­ed with the met­al struc­ture.

A par­ty of South­ern Di­vi­sion of­fi­cers led by ASP De­onar­ine Bas­deo, Sgt Gor­don Ma­haraj and Cpl Karen Bruce vis­it­ed the scene. Re­ports stat­ed that Vic­to­ry who was in the front pas­sen­ger's seat suf­fered mul­ti­ple in­juries to the head and body. Po­lice said if the ve­hi­cle had not col­lid­ed with the bridge, it would have plunged in­to the mouth of the Godineau Riv­er. One pass­er-by said the group of friends were seen lim­ing at V's Casi­no in San Fer­nan­do where they serve free drinks on a Fri­day night. How­ev­er, he was un­able to say if they were con­sum­ing al­co­hol. Rel­a­tives were trau­ma­tised when they viewed the man­gled ve­hi­cle at the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion.

Vic­to­ry's aunt Cather­ine Fran­cis said the death has left the fam­i­ly, es­pe­cial­ly her moth­er Stephanie in shock. "Right about now, her moth­er is in a mess and her fa­ther Bar­ry is on a cruise ship and he does not know any­thing as yet. We have been try­ing to con­tact him whole morn­ing but we can't get through." Fran­cis said it was even hard­er on the fam­i­ly since her sis­ter Car­ol Cow­ard had died in 2007 in a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent in La Ro­maine. She said her niece was the first of two chil­dren and was study­ing So­cial Stud­ies and Math­e­mat­ics at the Fyz­abad Sec­ondary School. She de­scribed her as a lov­ing per­son who was nice to every­one. Cpl Bruce is con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.